Seven

After the constant bustle of the week’s beginning, particularly the dodging and weaving that started off each day, Harvey Jordan welcomed his first opportunity to remain the following morning in his flat, his next appointment with Lesley Corbin not until the afternoon. But it wasn’t a chance to relax; the opposite, in fact. The forthcoming meeting was to provide the personal information the American lawyer had asked for during their transatlantic telephone conversation and Jordan recognized how well and how carefully he had to evaluate – but most importantly of all, not to forget – anything and everything he told the woman. Jordan worked hard to convince himself that after going through most of his life successfully being somebody else it shouldn’t be overwhelmingly difficult for him to keep his story straight. But it had been a bad mistake not to realize how he was being ensnared in France. And he was determined against any further disasters, most definitely in any courtroom setting where any information he provided today could be publicly challenged and shown to be a lie.

Overnight, questions that he should have asked – were essential he ask – Daniel Beckwith or at least obtain guidance from Lesley Corbin crowded in upon him and Jordan spent the morning listing them, prompted as he did so to add others. The biggest imponderable factor was what exactly the American enquiries in France had discovered and which could be put to him. It was also vital that he remember everything he had told Alyce Appleton, whom it was logical to assume would have told her legal team and with which he could be confronted, either by her or her husband’s lawyers. There’d been his lie that he was independently wealthy, from a family inheritance which he successfully utilized as a venture capitalist investor. And the sympathy-seeking improvization built around his divorce. Beckwith hadn’t minimized the financial implications of the damages claims, which made his income and its source directly relevant. None of which Jordan could substantiate beyond the returns accepted by the British Inland Revenue as a professional gambler. Jordan couldn’t imagine the lost love of his life nonsense being introduced in any court examination or record, except for its connection with his supposed occupation and income, but it was something not to ignore but rather to be explained away if it were raised. He couldn’t think of any awkward personal information in the South of France, apart from his address lodged at the Carlton Hotel in Cannes which Appleton’s side appeared already to have obtained, by which he could be confronted. Neither did he imagine any of his previous conquests about whom Beckwith had questioned him being traced: he couldn’t himself remember all of their names and he’d determinedly avoided being photographed with or by any of them. Alyce hadn’t carried a camera and shunned the approaches from any of the restaurant photographers as forcefully as he had, although there were those that he’d already anticipated having been snatched of them together. And he’d paid every bill in cash, the deposit for the car rental going against his hotel bill.

Jordan was at Lesley Corbin’s Chancery Lane office fifteen minutes before the appointed time, his query list memorized but in his inside pocket if he needed any reminders, together with all the official personal documents she’d asked him the previous day to bring, which he had although reluctantly, professionally aware of their illegal usefulness.

The package Daniel Beckwith had couriered from New York appeared the same size as he remembered Alyce Appleton completing at the hotel, although substantially thicker, topped by a copy of the lawyer’s terms and conditions of engagement.

‘I’ve never heard of agreeing contracts with lawyers?’ said Jordan. It was one of the questions on his list.

The woman shrugged. ‘It’s sometimes done here between solicitors and barristers, on behalf of clients. Maybe it’s to do with the particular circumstances of this situation, different jurisdictions and regulations in different countries, in addition to different American states being involved. I’ve gone through it. I didn’t find any reason why you shouldn’t sign: it’s as much for your protection in an American court as it is for his being paid his fees.’

‘You think they’re reasonable?’ seized Jordan, wanting to concentrate on finance as quickly as possible.

‘I warned you about costs,’ reminded the woman. ‘The court refreshers are $2,000 a day. What can’t be quantified at the moment from what Beckwith provided – or what he hasn’t yet been provide with, from the other sides – is exactly how many days the case might take. It’s obviously a contested case – you contesting the claims against you, presumably as Alyce will be doing even if they are conniving – so it definitely won’t be a short hearing.’

‘Give me a ballpark figure,’ demanded Jordan.

‘Impossible,’ refused the lawyer. ‘You want to do some sums on the back of an envelope, allow a month …’ She paused. ‘A minimum of a month.’

‘Presuming the court won’t sit on a Saturday or Sunday, that will be something like $40,000 in court refreshers alone?’

‘And there’s the hourly $500 for all the preliminary consultations,’ added Lesley. ‘There’ll also be search fees, impossible at this stage to estimate. And if you’re going to have to go back and forth, possibly several times, and pay hotel bills while you’re in New York and Raleigh, you’ve got to calculate travel and living expenses. Also impossible to estimate. And my fees and expenses, which I haven’t got around to thinking about yet. That’s why I can’t give you a ballpark guess. But I did warn you that it wasn’t going to be cheap.’

‘What if all the claims are dismissed, that I’ve been forced to defend myself against marriage destroying allegations that aren’t justified?’

‘In this country a judge would have the discretion to apportion costs, according to culpability. I’ll raise it with Dan when I respond to all the stuff he’s sent over for us to complete today. But you’ve got to bear in mind that you did sleep with her. And that you knew she was a married woman.’

‘That was surely her decision?’

‘I said I’ll raise it with Dan. You ready to start on his stuff?’

‘That’s what I’m here for.’

The woman isolated a document several pages thick and said, ‘OK, let’s learn all we can about Harvey William Jordan.’ She smiled up. ‘You brought your birth certificate, as I asked you?’

His hesitation at handing it across the desk to her was instinctive at parting with such an essential tool of his trade.

‘What is it?’ She frowned.

‘I don’t particularly like surrendering personal documents.’

The frown remained. ‘It’ll be copied, here today, like all the other stuff he wants. And couriered, in the possession of a messenger from the time it leaves here until it’s handed over to Dan’s firm in New York.’

Another silly lapse, Jordan thought, self-critically. ‘Sure. Stupid of me. I’ve not been involved in anything like this before.’

‘We have to know, with supporting details, what you do for a living,’ she went on.

‘I need to understand something,’ said Jordan, coming to the most highlighted note on his reminder list. ‘There’ll be lawyers acting separately for Alyce as well as those acting for Appleton? And Dan acting for me, right?’

‘Yes,’ the woman agreed, curiously.

‘I read somewhere that statements are exchanged between lawyers, in advance of cases beginning?’ Jordan was inwardly churning at having a lie to explain away.

‘That’s the system.’

‘Are facts checked, before cases begin? So that they can be contested in court, if they’re doubted?’

The frown came back. ‘Sometimes. What’s your problem?’

‘I told Alyce I was a venture capitalist, from a family inheritance.’

‘And you’re not?’

‘I’m a gambler,’ announced Jordan, the vocation long accepted by the British tax authorities.

‘You mean you don’t have a job, an occupation or a business? That that’s all you do, gamble professionally?’

‘Yes. But it’s not as easy as you seem to imagine. To succeed as a professional gambler you’ve got to win more than you lose, as I do.’

‘Why didn’t you tell her what you really did?’

‘I thought venture capitalist sounded better, I guess,’ Jordan said as he shrugged, wishing what he was telling Lesley Corbin sounded better. The agreement with the British tax authorities had taken almost three years, but always through correspondence, never personal encounters like this. Verbally it didn’t sound very convincing. Jordan had perfected a method of providing what the British Inland Revenue finally recognized as legal proof of income but needed to know if it would be accepted by an American court and American lawyers. Even if it was it was going to require great more physical effort. And a lot more dodging and weaving to avoid it being discovered that he was duplicating to satisfy two, not just one, demand. He wished he could better gauge Lesley Corbin’s thoughts from the quizzical expression on her face.

‘You make enough from gambling to live at the best hotels for months at a time, as you did in France?’ she pressed.

‘It fluctuates. I haven’t starved so far.’ Because I very rarely wager any actual money, he thought. She was never going to accept it! She’d see through it as a lie, and a bad one at that, as if through polished glass.

‘Dan wants some financial information,’ she said, flatly.

‘I guessed he might,’ said Jordan, constantly bemused by his unusual honesty. Heavily he went on: ‘I can’t produce audited books, if you know what I mean.’

The woman smiled, as Jordan hoped she would. ‘Or income tax returns?’

‘I could produce copies of those,’ Jordan promised, glad he’d taken duplicates to remind himself from year to year.

‘So there are tax accepted records, if they’re demanded?’

‘I’d prefer them not to be,’ admitted Jordan, edging forward.

‘Let’s leave official interest for the moment,’ she said. ‘I could accept a cash deposit, to be held in a client account.’

She wasn’t going to challenge him! It was going to work! ‘Information of which will be made available only to America?’

‘It’s only applicable and required by America,’ she pointed out. ‘I will accept your cash deposit, as I am verbally accepting your instructions. I am not required to know anything more about a source of that cash; that’s Dan’s responsibility. I will talk personally, by telephone, to Dan – not set out the question by letter – and when you get to New York you’ll need to talk in more detail to him. We’ve got to keep in mind how important it is to minimize any publicity. Do you understand?’

‘Very clearly,’ assured Jordan. ‘As I’m sure you understood my concern. How much will you want that deposit to be?’

‘That’s what I’ll talk to Dan about.’

‘I’m glad we’re having this conversation.’

‘To cover as many eventualities as possible is why we’re having this conversation.’

‘I’m feeling more comfortable about it now.’ How easily those who practised law were prepared to bend it. Maybe becoming a lawyer would be his next career change.

‘When I speak to Dan he’ll want to know if you can adequately defend the action? Financially, I mean.’

‘I can.’ Because ultimately I won’t be paying the money, thought Jordan, the decision hardening in his mind. He had a lot to set up as soon as he got to America – if he got to America.

‘We’ll need to meet – meet, not even talk on the phone – after I’ve spoken to him.’

‘I understand.’ He’d been lucky, finding Lesley Corbin. Jordan hoped it was another omen.

Lesley flicked the edge of the document from which she was working. ‘This is very much a pro forma. Dan will need more in these new circumstances. How do you gamble? On what, I mean?’

‘Professional gamblers don’t gamble,’ lectured Jordan. ‘They only ever put their money on certainties.’

‘Don’t go polemic on me. What do you gamble on? Where do you gamble?’

‘High stake rooms at casinos: poker, blackjack, roulette, backgammon,’ he said, reciting the games he’d been one of the first to programme for Internet use. ‘Horses, too. I’ve got the maximum £30,000 Premium Bond block, which in the four years I’ve held it has produced a return of an additional £20,000. I consider that a gamble. But definitely not the lottery: the odds aren’t good for anyone.’

‘I think it would be wise for us to be careful,’ said Lesley, lecturing in return. ‘The law is that receipted proof of casino profits can be issued for tax purposes. I presume you provide those, with your tax returns?’

Jordan only just stopped himself laughing outright at being told of the system he’d bled dry for so long. ‘Some.’

The woman smiled again. ‘We’ll maybe need some; as many as you can produce,’ insisted Lesley. ‘Supported by dates, places and amounts. For horse race winnings we’ll need courses, the actual names of horses, winning slips if they can be kept.’

The duplication of which Jordan had anticipated. ‘I’m sure I can manage that.’

‘Start collecting them from now on. I don’t want you unable to face a challenge about income source.’

‘I will. See if I’ve got anything hanging around, as well,’ promised the man who never left anything financial hanging around.

‘What we’ve talked about so far makes a lot of Dan’s other questions irrelevant at this time,’ decided the woman, going back to her list. ‘I’m going to leave the occupation question blank, until I’ve talked to Dan.’

‘You’re the lawyer.’ And am I glad, he thought.

‘You are not married?’ Lesley started again, briskly.

‘No.’

‘Have you ever been?’

‘Divorced, a long time ago.’

‘You’ve got the papers to prove that?’

‘Yes,’ said Jordan, uneasily.

‘Children?’

‘No.’

‘Are you in a relationship that makes you responsible for any dependants?’

‘No.’

‘Do you suffer any permanent illness or disease?’

‘What?’ questioned Jordan, surprised.

‘You had sexual relations with a married woman. According to what Dan has set out here, if you are suffering from AIDS or any sexually transmittable disease you didn’t tell Alyce about before you entered into a relationship you could be criminally charged with assault, as well as giving Alfred Appleton grounds for several additional claims. Murder or manslaughter even, if Alyce becomes infected with AIDS from which she subsequently died.’

‘I am not suffering from AIDS or any other sexually transmitted disease.’

‘That will have to be attested by a sworn medical statement.’

‘You’re joking!’

‘I thought we’d agreed there is nothing amusing about the circumstances in which you find yourself.’

‘I’ll arrange the tests.’

‘I’ve already made your appointment for eleven o’clock tomorrow, in Harley Street. A Dr Preston.’

‘Thank you.’ How close, Jordan wondered, would Dr Preston’s consulting rooms be to those of plastic surgeon Paul Maculloch, whose stolen identity was proving to be so useful, although not in the way originally intended.

‘Did you give – or exchange – gifts with Alyce Appleton?’

‘No.’

‘Exchange addresses?’

‘You know we didn’t!’

‘For the record.’

‘No.’

‘Did she provide any details of her husband’s business?’

‘She told me he was a commodity dealer.’ The rest was for him to find out, Jordan promised himself.

‘That’s a generalization.’

‘She didn’t specify. Just told me the name of the firm, Appleton and Drake.’

‘Did you independently enquire into what they specifically traded?’

‘I had no reason. I wasn’t interested.’ But now I am, mentally added Jordan. How long would it take him to find out all that he needed about Appleton and Drake?

‘Did you have any prior knowledge of or about Alyce Appleton?’

‘I don’t understand that question,’ protested Jordan.

‘It’s not difficult,’ retorted Lesley Corbin. ‘The common thread through every claim Appleton is making is that you’ve intentionally stolen his wife.’

Jordan was momentarily halted by the irony. ‘I do not steal other men’s wives. Neither am I a gigolo.’

‘That wasn’t part of the question but I’ll include it in your answer. It might be apposite. Did you know before you began the affair that Alyce Appleton was rich?’

Harvey Jordan’s hesitation now was to keep his reply as honest as possible, following the golden precept that the fewer the lies the fewer there were to remember and by which to be trapped. Cautiously he replied, ‘Her jewellery was obviously expensive. And she was staying in a suite in an expensive hotel. But then so was I. I didn’t pick her out for either of those reasons. I didn’t pick her out at all! We got into conversation. Things developed.’

‘As things developed with other women before, according to what you’ve already told me, already told Dan?’

‘You’re making me sound like a gigolo!’

‘Remember what Dan said about training you to respond properly to questions! Look upon this as an early lesson. Questions can be phrased to make you lose your temper, which you came close to doing there.’

‘I did not get into conversation with Alyce Appleton because I thought she was rich, nor to take advantage if she were rich,’ said Jordan, pedantically. ‘I paid for every hotel room, meal and yacht trip we shared.’

‘You got receipted bills, in your name?’

‘For Christ’s sake!’

‘That’s not an answer.’

‘No, I do not have receipted bills in my name.’

‘Credit card counterfoils?’

‘I paid for everything in cash. I thought I’d already told you that.’

The woman looked up from her documents. ‘Everything in cash! That surprises me, in this day and age of convenient plastic’

‘I’m not part of “this day and age of convenient plastic”.’ Only other people’s plastic, came the thought.

She grinned briefly at the continuing pedantry. ‘Which brings me to a financial question I forgot. What debts, outstanding or unpaid credit or store card liabilities or financial court orders do you have against you?’

‘None.’

Lesley came up to him again. ‘None?’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘What about a mortgage? Or car finance? Or overdrafts?’

‘I own my apartment in Marylebone outright. I do not have a car. Or any overdrafts.’

She shook her head. ‘That’s amazing!’

‘That’s how it is. How I choose to live.’

‘Professional gamblers really don’t gamble, do they?’

‘Not this one.’

Lesley Corbin moved on to another document in the American pack. ‘As well as the birth certificate we’ve already talked about, Dan wants at least three photographs of you, a copy of your parents’ marriage certificate and a copy of your passport. And now we’ve got to add your divorce papers.’ She looked up again. ‘Have you brought it all, as I asked?’

‘I’ve brought them but I want to know why he wants it all?’

‘I’m just relaying the request,’ Lesley said. ‘Dan wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t necessary. Like I said, it’s all going to be couriered so it will all be safe.’

As he handed each item over Jordan said, ‘The exchange of statements from the other sides? Will I be shown them, before the case?’

‘Inevitably Dan will take you through them; that’s the whole purpose of an exchange, to isolate factual errors or outright lies.’

‘So we’ll be able to gauge whether they’re working together, to set me up?’

‘I only mentioned that as a possibility and I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t because that’s all it is and quite an unlikely one at that,’ said the lawyer. ‘If it is and Dan can prove it, that’s you off any divorce or alienation of affection hook and all the other damages claims. Which is the good news. The bad news could be that it would establish a case for attempted deception, which would make it a crime to be heard in a criminal court with you as the major prosecution witness. And would almost inevitably attract the publicity back here you want to avoid.’

Jordan walked directly down Chancery Lane, crossed Fleet Street into El Vino and huddled himself into the furthest corner of the back bar with a large glass of Chablis, not so much to drink as to justify his occupation of the secluded table. His feelings during the conference with Lesley Cordin had gone up and down like an elevator, finishing at ground or even basement level. He realistically supposed that it didn’t even come close to the exchanges that were to follow – his first lesson, the woman had called it – but it had been far worse than he’d expected. His high point had been Lesley’s acceptance of where his income came from, but as their conversation – and her demands for evidence – progressed, he’d objectively realized that lawyers representing someone as determined as Alfred Appleton appeared to be wouldn’t believe it so readily as she had, whether or not there was any connivance between the commodity trader and his wife. Despite Lesley’s repeated insistence that she had been offering the most outside of all outside possibilities, which she now regretted, Jordan had clung to the hope of it being dramatically proven in court to provide his absolute, guilt-free salvation. Which now it couldn’t be. His lowest point was Lesley Corbin’s easy but unarguable illustration of how a finding of collusion could result in a criminal prosecution with an even greater risk of the publicity he was so desperate to avoid. The worst feeling of all was of being incarcerated in an ever-tightening, constricting straightjacket from which he couldn’t and wouldn’t be able to escape suffocation.

Harvey Jordan immediately recognized the self-pity that had brought him down before and didn’t want – wouldn’t allow – again. He hoped Lesley Corbin had been right about there always being a way out and that the way he had in mind would materialize. He really did have a lot to do to make it work.

Eight

Since the legal tightening up of the money-laundering legislation demanding proof of cash receipts and profits – most directly targeted against the proceeds from drug trafficking – it had become much more difficult for Harvey Jordan to operate his well established, and so far foolproof, scheme to obtain tax evidence of his supposed income. When he had first embarked upon his career, casinos had been far more casual than they were now monitoring the big chip purchases against money paid out when those same chips were cashed in. In the much mourned early days Jordan had been able to buy £50,000 worth of chips with the stolen identity money, then move from the most crowded tables too frequently for any one croupier or pit boss to remember the minimal stakes he placed against what he won or lost. He would then return to the caisse to get a tax receipt for all but a little of what he’d changed in the first place. Jordan estimated he actually did win on fifty percent of his casino outings – always betting evens – and every time he did it represented a bonus.

Since the legislation Jordan believed he had isolated the casinos that noted the chip-purchasing amounts against the money reclaimed, which had greatly reduced his choice and made getting the necessary paperwork that much harder. And now he was confronted with a demand to at least double – possibly even treble – his receipt collecting to satisfy not just his well organized and regulated return to the English Inland Revenue but an American court and its assembled lawyers if a source were demanded for the cash he was to deposit with Lesley Corbin’s firm for the forthcoming divorce hearing.

Jordan reassurred himself that he could overcome the casino difficulties from horse racing. By visiting some courses without making any effort to evade the still feared surveillance he could also actually prove to the opposing American legal teams that he genuinely was a professional gambler. By buying betting slips from on-course bookmakers in full public – and hopefully photographed – view and milling around them again at the end of a race, he would appear to be collecting his winnings, whether there were any or not and which was immaterial. All he needed was the date, place, race title and name of the winning horse. And to insist, if he were challenged, that he hadn’t been able to retain the slip. He would, though, keep those with which he did coincidentally win.

It was going to involve a lot of late nights and a considerable amount of travelling, even if he restricted himself to race meetings conveniently around London, which he couldn’t do all the time because, as he’d told Lesley, a professional gambler only followed certainties. And until the American ordeal was over his role had to be that of a very visible and successful professional punter, not that of someone whose identity he had stolen. That reflection physically stopped Jordan, half dressed in preparation for another unwelcome and unwanted day.

Realistically nothing was more important than what was happening – or about to happen – in America and his doing everything possible to reduce whatever damage might come from it. But he had no idea how long it was going to be before it was resolved: however, whenever, it might be resolved to his benefit. But until it was, he couldn’t begin to think about any further identity thefts. It could, he supposed, be as long as a year. Which made it the most frightening uncertainty of all and it hadn’t even been on his list of questions to ask Lesley Corbin or Daniel Beckwith.

Again, unsettlingly, Harvey Jordan felt the tightness of the slowly crushing straightjacket he now found himself in.

Dr James Preston was a small, electric-haired man who fussed nervously around his disordered office, his unbuttoned white coat flapping about him like startled wings, head jerking constantly about him in an apparent search for something mislaid or forever lost. Not looking at Jordan he said, ‘You’ve got some notes? Samples?’

‘Neither,’ said Jordan. ‘The appointment was made by my solicitor, Lesley Corbin. It’s for a legal case.’

‘Legal case?’ demanded the venerealogist, frowning directly at Jordan for the first time.

‘In America,’ offered Jordan.

The man flustered through a hamster’s den of papers on his desk, finally coming up with a confirming official letter from Lesley Corbin. Looking up again he said, ‘HIV, negative or positive? Any venereal infection?’

‘To prove I am not suffering from anything.’ Jordan supposed he should be amused by the shambling, mad doctor imagery, but he wasn’t. As Lesley had reminded him the previous day there was nothing amusing in the situation in which he found himself.

Preston stared from beneath his upright shock of pure white hair. ‘You think you have caught something?’

‘It’s to guarantee that I haven’t infected someone. Anyone.’

‘Ah!’ exclaimed the man, in final understanding. He went back to the appointment slip. ‘It doesn’t say,’ he said, as if offering an explanation of his own.

That’s what it’s for.’

‘You suffered from anything in the past?’

‘No.’

‘It’s possible for me to find a trace, if you have.’

‘I haven’t,’ insisted Jordan.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Positive.’

‘Have you got any discharge? Irritation? Rashes? Need to pass water frequently?’

‘No. No symptoms, if those are the symptoms.’

‘You sure?’

‘Positive,’ sighed Jordan, again. Why the hell had Lesley Corbin picked this man?

‘When’s the last time you had a full medical examination?’

‘I’ve never had a full medical examination.’

‘Who’s your regular doctor, from whom I can obtain your records and case notes. I’ll need you to sign the authority for me to ask for them, of course.’

‘I don’t have a regular doctor.’

The white-haired head came up again. ‘What do you do if you are ill?’

‘I’m never ill. If I were I’d go to a hospital.’ To have a regular doctor meant records being created and invisible men didn’t have records.

‘This is for court purposes?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll need to give you a full medical, as well as giving you the specific examination that’s been asked for. I can’t do one without the other.’

‘Why don’t you do that and get it over with?’ demanded Jordan, impatiently.

Jordan later decided he wouldn’t have agreed so readily if he’d known it was going to take almost three hours. He had to supply five phials for all the necessary blood tests and two for urine examination, as well as a faeces sample. There were two sets of chest and lower body X-rays and his blood pressure and rate was tested not just by an arm cuff but on a treadmill meter. His lung capacity was measured by his blowing into an asthma tube and his vision to the very bottom line of the alphabet chart. Although a prostrate assessment was ticked on one of the blood test cards the doctor also insisted upon a rubber gloved anal examination, which was a great deal more uncomfortable than with the later, narrower colostomy probe. The final forty-five minutes was a verbal exchange to discover any illnesses or complaints Jordan could have conceivably suffered during his remembered childhood up to that day, whether or not it had required doctor or hospital consultation, followed by a determined effort by Preston to complete a medical history of Jordan’s parents.

At the end the doctor said, ‘I think you’re the only person I’ve ever examined who never suffered a single childhood illness, nor has needed any medical advice since.’

‘I guess I’ve been lucky.’

‘And you’re sure you can’t remember a single illness from which your parents suffered?’

‘Seems I’ve inherited their healthy genes.’

‘What were the causes of their deaths?’

‘They died together in a car crash,’ said Jordan, which was a lie. His father had died first, of cancer, and his Alzheimer’s-afflicted mother of pneumonia but Jordan was bored and impatient to end the pointless encounter.

‘You’re responsible for payment, I assume?’

‘Wrongly,’ said Jordan, who’d anticipated the approach. ‘Your secretary will have the name and address of the lawyer who booked this if it’s not on the note you’ve got there. Send your account to her, along with the results.’

Preston was on the internal phone before Jordan finished speaking, his face clouding at the confirmation of what Jordan had told him. The doctor said, ‘Solicitors are very dilatory in settling their accounts. Will you please tell Ms Corbin that I expect payment within the period stipulated upon my invoice?’

‘Of course,’ said Jordan, without any intention of doing so. ‘You didn’t tell me how my examination went?’

‘I have obviously to wait for all the tests results but there’s every indication of your being remarkably fit: nothing obviously wrong at all.’

Apart from you knowing – and a record now existing – of every physical detail about me, thought Jordan.

The irritating medical examination, for which he’d allowed only an hour, completely disrupted Jordan’s schedule, leaving him with only thirty minutes to keep the afternoon appointment with the photographer. In the taxi taking him there Jordan decided to abandon until the following morning the intended visit to Hans Crescent to check for any further correspondence in his Paul Maculloch name; he was anxious to begin at once his money-manipulating casino tour.

Jordan had booked for passport photographs, waiting until he got to the studio to add three larger prints and agreed at once to the obviously increase fee, interested only in getting the picture session over as quickly as possible. He was back in the Marylebone apartment by six and out, showered, changed and with £20,000 from the bedroom closet safe to begin the chips-for-cash receipt switch by eight. For an hour he played poker at the high stakes table of one of his favourite gambling clubs in Brook Street, Mayfair, before quitting £2,300 ahead to move to the roulette room. There he moved between three tables, increasing his winnings by another £7,000 before dropping £6,000 in an unstoppable consistent slide. By the time it did stop he was down to his poker profit. It took him another hour playing blackjack to take his winnings up a further £1,500. He cashed in and got his tax receipt for winnings of £24,500. Throughout Jordan remained constantly alert but failed to isolate anyone paying any particular attention or interest in him.

Jordan hesitated for a moment as he left the club, turning to the doorman for a taxi, but abruptly deciding, without any reason, to walk into Park Lane. When he reached Park Street the darkened interior of the last car in the parking line at the corner was briefly illuminated in the headlight beam of an approaching taxi, perfectly enabling Jordan to see a man he remembered at every table at which he’d played that night.

Nine

‘Being followed!’ Lesley Corbin frowned but smiled very slightly as well. The combination made her nose wrinkle.

‘I believe so,’ said Jordan, discomfited by her doubting expression.

‘When, how, did you come to believe that?’

‘Three nights ago. I’d been gambling, in Mayfair. When I came out of the club I saw a man, waiting in his car. He’d been in every room in which I’d played, during the evening.’

‘Watching you?’

‘I hadn’t been aware inside. I only recognized him outside, in the car.’

‘What else?’

‘That’s it,’ said Jordan, further discomfited by the emptiness of what he was saying. He had abandoned the intention to go to Hans Crescent and that night returned to the same Mayfair club, where he’d lost almost £5,000. He didn’t see the man in the club or isolate anyone waiting in a car when he’d left to take the same route to Park Lane for a taxi.

The woman wasn’t frowning any more but the smile was hovering. ‘You haven’t thought you’ve been followed since?’

‘I haven’t been aware of it,’ qualified Jordan. ‘They watched me pretty effectively in France without my suspecting it, don’t forget. Do you think they’ve begun some sort of surveillance here?’

Lesley humped her shoulders. ‘They could have, although I would have thought they’ve already got all they need for their case as far as the adultery is concerned.’

‘So I’m becoming paranoid?’

The smile widened. ‘I didn’t say that. Or think it. They might have decided it’s necessary, now that Dan’s got involved and confirmed you’re going to contest the accusations.’

‘Could you ask him what he thinks? I don’t like the idea of my every move being watched.’

She hunched her shoulders again. ‘There’s nothing we can really do about it, if they are.’

‘It’s an unsettling feeling.’ He’d have to check Hans Crescent tomorrow, Jordan realized. By now there’d probably be something from his new City bank if nothing else in the name of Paul Maculloch.

‘It’s not actually against the law, although if you could prove it we could apply for a harassment order. Proving it would be a problem. And attract publicity to the case in America, which we don’t really want, do we?’

‘We’ll leave it,’ decided Jordan.

‘That’s probably best,’ agreed the lawyer. ‘I’ve got more from Dan. And I’ve got the medical report and the photographs.’

‘And I very definitely want to talk about Preston!’ declared Jordan.

‘I want to talk about Preston, too,’ said Lesley. ‘You’d better listen to me first.’

‘You first, about everything,’ agreed Jordan. He saw that Lesley Corbin had several, separated sets of paper arranged in front of her on her desk.

She selected the smallest of the files. ‘Dan’s emails. There’ll definitely need to be what he calls a financial lodgement, in view of what you do for a living. He’s talking of an initial tranche of $100,000, which I’ve roughly converted to around £55,000.’ She looked up. ‘Is that all right?’

‘If you mean can I provide that much in cash, the answer’s yes, but on the understanding we reached earlier.’ Not just a trip to Hans Crescent, Jordan thought: he’d need to get more out of the safe deposits at the Royston and Jones bank. What was set aside in Marylebone was gambling stake money. And at the moment it amounted to less than he’d started out with. His resentment against Alfred Appleton was building by the day.

‘I talked personally with Dan,’ said the woman. ‘Our understanding is acceptable as far as he’s concerned. But he stressed it’s only an initial tranche.’

‘What if I’m not found to be responsible for the marriage collapse?’

‘Again, roughly as we thought. An American judge would have discretion but we’re not denying that you slept with Alyce Appleton. It comes down to whether or not you – or rather Dan – can satisfy the judge you’re not a marriage wrecker. Dan thinks he can, on our exchanges so far.’

‘So £55,000 might be sufficient?’

‘Initial was the word Dan used,’ insisted Lesley. ‘How long the hearing lasts – as far as you are concerned – will again depend upon the judge’s view of your personal responsibility and culpability. I think at this stage Dan’s going to try to argue you out of the case at the beginning, in chambers if possible. But if the judge, who hasn’t been selected yet, won’t agree that schedule and wants to hear the actual divorce evidence first, you’ll go to the back of the queue. In that event, it could last the month, maybe longer.’

‘If I made the initial deposit £75,000 I would have some living and travelling money too, wouldn’t I?’

‘I’m not sure that would come within the acceptible provisions of the arrangement.’

‘Can you ask?’

‘Of course.’

‘What about publicity?’ asked Jordan, inevitably coming to his overriding concern.

Lesley Corbin extended her hands, palm upwards, in a ‘who knows?’ gesture. ‘If you’re dismissed from the case before it starts, in a chambers hearing, Dan doubts there’ll be any: you’re no more than a name. Dan hasn’t got as far as any detailed exchange papers, to discover if any other men are being cited, as well as you. Or, if there are, whether they’re contesting the allegations as well. Whether or not there is any publicity is really dependent upon Appleton and the sort of case his side intends. And what the judge permits.’

‘So we’re not much further forward?’

‘The main purpose of this meeting is to fix when you can go out for your first meeting in New York,’ announced Lesley.

‘As soon as possible, to get it all over as quickly as I can,’ said Jordan at once. ‘I thought I’d made that clear!’

‘I needed to check with your first,’ she said, detecting the irritation in Jordan’s voice. ‘Give me a day.’

‘I’ll fly out on Saturday, give myself Sunday to get over the jet lag and see Dan on Monday.’ That gave him the rest of the week to check Hans Crescent, get at least £75,000 from the new Leadenhall Street bank and hand it over to Lesley Corbin.

‘That sounds good. I’ll check with Dan. Fix a time for Monday.’

‘Tell me about Preston,’ demanded Jordan.

Lesley went to the pile on her left. ‘Your blood pressure’s 160 over 90, which he says is too high. And your cholesterol level is 7: it should be well under 4. You should get treatment for both, according to him. On the plus side, you’re not HIV positive. Nor are you suffering any sexual disease.’ She looked up expectantly. ‘And he’s invoked medico/legal consultation rates and put in a bill for £1,550.’

‘What!’

‘That’s in line with what’s charged by medical experts for legal cases. He’s claiming he should have been told by me: got a price agreed.’

‘He’s a robbing, conning bastard!’ said Jordan, the hypocrisy never occurring to him. ‘He wasn’t asked and didn’t need to carry out such an examination!’

‘It does appear you’ve got some medical problems you should get treated, however. I’ll argue with him about the fee, of course: get it reduced.’

‘Reduced a hell of a lot,’ insisted Jordan.

‘And here’s the photographs,’ she said, offering an envelope across the desk.

Jordan had always kept any type of identifying document to an absolute minimum and in his judgement these photos approached a dangerous level of identification. His immediate decision was very definitely to stick with the pictures in his current passport, of which he still had a substantial supply, which were already three years old and would hopefully misrepresent him further when it needed renewal in another seven years. If he were dismissed from the American case he’d do whatever he could to get Beckwith to recover these current images for him to destroy. The short, schoolboy-cut, sandy blond hair, normally so easy to gel into a different style for various identities, here was too recognizable, and the contact lenses he’d uncomfortably used to accentuate the blueness of his eyes were too blue, making him starrey-eyed, He didn’t, either, consider he’d sufficiently distorted his mouth by sucking back his top and bottom lip, as he had in his previous photographs.

‘I think they could have been better,’ criticised the lawyer.

So do I, better at disguising my features, thought Jordan. ‘Did you ask Dan why photographs were necessary?’

‘We left it for you to ask him yourself,’ she reminded. ‘As I said, it’s got to be for comparison against photographs of you and Alyce in France.’

‘I would have thought my being in court was a good enough comparison.’

‘Prior exchange of documents,’ Lesley said.

‘I need to hand over the £75,000 deposit.’

‘Yes, you do,’ she agreed.

‘I’ll have it ready by Friday.’

Lesley Corbin looked at her open diary, on the far left of the desk. ‘Three thirty?’

‘Three thirty’s fine.’

‘What are you going to do about the blood pressure and the cholesterol?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You sure that’s wise?’

‘Believing anything that that bastard says isn’t wise.’

‘Anything else – any uncertainty – still on your mind?’

‘If I think of anything I’ll mention it on Friday.’

There were, in fact, more uncertainties on Jordan’s mind, more than he could count and most of which he couldn’t talk about to Lesley Corbin. Or anybody else. He was straightjacketed: by frustration and impotence and … and by no longer being in charge of himself and whatever was happening to him. He wanted immediately – now – to hit back. Fight back. Cause Alfred Jerome fucking Appleton as much and as many problems as Alfred Jerome Appleton was causing him. No, Jordan contradicted himself at once. More problems. Far more. He wanted to fuck Appleton in every way but physically, far worse and far more painfully than he’d ever been screwed before. Worse, even, than the retribution he exacted against the man who’d stolen his own company and in effect destroyed his marriage. Abruptly – anxiously – Jordan wanted to see a photograph of the man: ingrain every line and feature of his face, of everything about the man, as he ingrained every detail about his victims before embarking upon another identity-stealing operation.

For the first time since being overwhelmed by so much he didn’t understand and couldn’t control, Harvey Jordan smiled, decisions clearing in his otherwise cluttered mind. He didn’t understand everything and couldn’t anticipate how anything could or would turn out. Not yet. But he would eventually, as he always did. And when he did – as soon as he did – Alfred Jerome Appleton would learn what an implacable, unrelenting enemy he’d made.

What about Alyce Louise Appleton? came the abrupt, prodding question. Jordan couldn’t believe – didn’t want to believe – that Alyce was the promiscuous part of some conspiracy. Jordan, a professional himself, was sure he would have recognized it: picked up the alarm-sounding clue, which he hadn’t. But he couldn’t be sure, he accepted, objectively. He had to keep an open – but not a vindictive, revengeful – mind until he got to New York and learned a great deal more.

Which he would. He’d search and probe and discover everything, and when he had he’d reach his own verdict and exact his own punishment upon everyone who’d decided Harvey Jordan was a ripe, easy-to-pluck victim.

It had taken a long time – too long – for him to flesh out the decision. Now that he had he felt encouraged, confident, sure he could win, whatever it took. That night Harvey Jordan won slightly over £11,000 and finished the evening feeling even more confident. Alert as he permanently was, he didn’t pick out anyone, either inside or outside the casino, whom he suspected of watching him, either. Maybe he had been paranoid after all.

Ten

There’d been the familiar quickening of his hearbeat upon landing at JFK, going through the airport formalities and choosing the Triboro bridge route in preference to the tunnel to get into Manhattan; there was never an alternative to entering New York above ground to see the snaggle-toothed skyline sketched out before him as he crossed the East River. But today Harvey Jordan felt different from how he had felt before. On this trip – hopefully – he was going to regain some control of and over his life, his anonymity, instead of being jerked constantly around at the end of someone else’s demanding, manipulating strings. Dear God, how much he wanted that! He guessed he was wishing too much too soon, but he couldn’t prevent himself hoping.

Jordan believed he’d finished the week ahead, which was where he always had to be: ahead, choosing the moves and the routes instead of following those where others tried to lead him. He’d ducked and dived for more than two hours after his last meeting with Lesley to reach Hans Crescent, where he found two bank documents from Royston and Jones that needed his immediate signature and, believing he remained unwatched after so much evasion, carried them at once to Leadenhall Street to hand-deliver them and to have any further correspondence held until his return from America. Then he’d crossed from the administration to the securities division to collect, in full, the £75,000 advance to which the American lawyer had agreed. He hadn’t been able to fit all of it into the Marylebone safe so he’d taken the overflow with him to gamble that night in a much more downmarket, but conveniently myopic, casino in Tottenham Court Road and added £3,200 to what he was increasingly regarding as a war chest. When he’d delivered the £75,000 to Lesley Corbin she said she wished she was coming to New York with him and fleetingly Jordan wished she were, too, although his current entrapment had driven even the remotest thought of personal relationships out of his mind, more so than he usually felt when he was working. He considered himself to be working now, as hard – harder even – as he had had to before in order to rebuild his first destroyed life. He’d asked Lesley why she didn’t come some other time, because this looked like the first of several trips and she’d said maybe, if she could gain access to the court when the actual hearings began to experience an American court in action and Jordan regretted his glib responses, not having initially believed she was serious. He regretted, too, talking to her about the man in the car outside the Mayfair club because he hadn’t had the slightest suspicion in the Tottenham Court Road casino or anywhere else – certainly not on the outward flight to America – that he was being watched and feared now he’d made himself look stupid. Having restored his pride, Harvey Jordan hated making himself look stupid.

Jordan’s triple-glazed suite at the Carlyle was further distanced from the donkey-bray wail of emergency sirens by being back from East 76th Street and, although he didn’t then feel tired, having fitfully dozed in his first-class sleeper-bed during the last BA flight of the day out of London, Jordan went directly to bed after an omelette from room service, not having eaten on the plane. He was determined against any overhanging jet lag during his Monday meeting with Daniel Beckwith. Despite his noise precautions Jordan slept badly, sub-consciously always aware of where he was. And why.

Since the stomach-lurching letter from Brinkmeyer, Hartley and Bernstein he’d actually thought little of Alyce Appleton, beyond her ever present name. But in a dream-cluttered half sleep his mind perfectly pictured her hunched over the official-looking papers in the Carlton lounge in Cannes and again, in the bikini wisp that had made it necessary for him to briefly remain in the sea, off the He St Marguerite, and most vividly of all of her lounged naked, languorously offering herself, on the bed of their tower suite at the St Tropez hotel. She’d said something to him then, something he couldn’t now remember but wanted to because he thought it was important and therefore something that he should recall. Jordan finally awoke, completely, still trying to recollect the remark she’d made. But couldn’t.

Daniel Beckwith was a towering, hard-bodied man well over six feet tall whose blond hair Jordan guessed to be longer than Lesley Corbin’s. A thrown-aside tie lay on top of a carelessly discarded jacket puddled in a side chair to expose on the lawyer a check shirt more at home on the ranch than a lawyer’s office; the large, three-pinned oval buckle of the man’s embossed leather belt was actually centred with the head of an animal, a bison maybe, and Jordan wondered if there were stables somewhere in the building for the lawyer’s horse. The man was halfway across the office as Jordan entered, hand already outstretched in greeting. Jordan tensed expectantly and just managed to avoid a wince at the knuckle-cracking shake.

‘Good of you to come, Harv: very good. Got a lot talk about.’

‘After speaking tc Lesley and you I didn’t think I had much of a choice,’ said Jordan, taking the chair to which the lawyer gestured. Jordan thought there was a tinge of an unidentifiable accent in the laid-back, measured voice. Jordan’s right hand actually ached.

‘There was a choice and you made the right one,’ assured Beckwith. ‘You want to toss your coat, make yourself comfortable, go right ahead.’ He jabbed an intercom key, declared, ‘When you’re ready, Suzie.’ And clicked off before there was any response from the other end. He smiled a perfectly sculpted, white-toothed smile and said, ‘Coffee, to help you stay awake after your trip over. Drink it all the time myself.’

‘I’m OK with my jacket. Coffee would be good, though.’ Jordan had begun work immediately after the bad night at the Carlyle, walking the length of Wall Street to identify conveniently grouped banks for what he intended in the immediate future – and avoided any alcohol – and isolating three possible short-lease apartments. His favourite was on West 72nd Street. Despite the exertion he’d slept badly again and been awake since five so he welcomed the coffee, which arrived on a tray with two mugs and a pot holding at least two pints. The titian haired girl whom Jordan guessed to be Suzie wore a clinging red sweater and a tight cream skirt to display pert breasts and rounded slim hips to their best and obvious advantages. She said ‘Hi’ to Jordan as she passed on her way out.

Beckwith said, ‘We keep Suzie on the payroll as a warning to clients what they’re allowed to think but not do.’

Jordan heard the girl laugh behind him at what he guessed to be a well rehearsed joke, wondering if it didn’t constitute sexual harassment. He smiled because he knew he was expected to and accepted the coffee the lawyer poured, mildly impatient at the irrelevance. Or was it irrelevant? he asked himself, remembering the American’s warning against losing his temper.

Beckwith patted the dossier on his desk with a heavy hand and said, ‘Got all your stuff. And Lesley tells me she’s set up an escrow account with the deposit.’

‘I don’t understand how you can move that much cash without fulfilling some financial regulations.’ Jordan hadn’t expected to talk about money so soon but was glad the lawyer had introduced it early on. As always it remained one of the foremost questions in his mind, the more so after his bank identification the previous afternoon.

‘There are regulations and they will be fulfilled,’ guaranteed Beckwith. ‘And we’re not transferring it all at once. I draw upon it, as and when it’s necessary, supported by a federal bank agreement to prove to your English authorities that it’s a bone fide, government agreed exchange for legal purposes upon the sworn oath of Lesley’s firm and my own. All expenditure and receipts have to be exchanged between the Fed and your Bank of England. But it’s between firms, not individuals. So your name never appears. It’s covered by multinational trade legislation but we qualify under it. And there’s nothing in the legislation requiring duplication with your Inland Revenue and our IRS. I guess there will be one day, when the loophole’s discovered, but at the moment you’re lucky we can utilize it.’

‘I’m glad it exists for the moment. And that I can draw on it. I’d like an initial cash advance of $25,000.

The lawyer frowned. ‘That much?’

‘I’m thinking of some working trips to Atlantic City. Maybe Las Vegas even.’

He’d carried just short of $10,000 into the country and wished it could have been more, although the immediate intention didn’t include casinos.

‘OK,’ agreed Beckwith reluctantly.

‘Let’s hope my luck holds.’ Jordan was sure that in addition to it preventing any discrepancy between his income tax submission and the money he was making available here was Beckwith’s need to ensure he could afford to pay for his defence. Jordan made a mental note to check the scheme when his current problems were finally over. There might be an advantage he could use, although he couldn’t at that moment imagine what it might be.

‘You’ve got to depend more upon me than upon luck,’ warned the lawyer.

‘I know that,’ accepted Jordan. ‘I can’t believe how I’ve come to be caught up in all this.’

‘People can’t – or don’t – until it happens to them.’

‘Can we cut to the chase, right now?’ urged Jordan, finally giving way to his impatience. ‘You know from Lesley how it happened: my side of the story. What are my chances of being dismissed the action?’

Beckwith laughed at the question, pouring more coffee. ‘There are too many things I still have to hear and learn and question before I could even begin to answer that. And even after I do hear and learn and question, I don’t think I’d like to try an answer, even then. At this point I haven’t had the individual statements of claim from Alfred Appleton’s side, specifying the grounds for those claims against you. Or what I need from Alyce Appleton’s lawyers. This meeting is for us to get to know each other, maybe exchange a few thoughts. We’ve got a long way to go.’

The same warning that Lesley had given him, Jordan remembered. ‘How can we get any thoughts together until we know their case … cases?’

‘I said exchanging a few thoughts, not finalizing our side.’ Beckwith reached to his right, turning on a tape recorder. ‘So let’s start doing that right now. Who made the first move down there in sunny France, you or Alyce?’

‘You mean who spoke first?’

‘You tell it your way.’

Jordan hesitated for a moment. ‘She spoke first. I’d been reading in the hotel lounge. Remembered a phone call I had to make. She stopped me as I was crossing the room and told me I’d left my book behind. I said I was coming back …’

‘Did you make the call?’

‘Up in my room.’

‘I thought you were in a suite?’

‘I was. Up in my suite. Do we really need to be as pedantic as this?’

‘Harv, I need to be so pedantic I know the colour of your underwear … maybe Alyce’s, too if I’m going to be able to undermine what might be put against you. I ask the questions, any question, you answer them, OK?’

‘OK.’

‘So you made the call?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who to?’

Shit, thought Jordan, anticipating the follow-up question. ‘A restaurant overlooking Cannes harbour. I wanted to eat there that night.’

‘So there’ll be a record of the reservation in your name, the restaurant will be able to confirm the call?’

‘No,’ said Jordan, seeing his way out. ‘The line was engaged. I tried twice but then gave up. I walked down that night and managed to get a table without a reservation.’

‘With Alyce.’

‘No,’ refused Jordan again, the relief moving through him at the unchallengable escape.

‘Having given up trying to make a connection you went back downstairs?’

‘Yes.’

‘What happened then?’

‘I stopped on my way back to where I’d been sitting, thanked her for trying to stop me losing my book. On the way out I think I’d asked her to watch that it stayed safe.’

‘And?’

‘She’d been writing, earlier. It looked like a lot of documents, in a large envelope. She’d stopped by the time I got back. The envelope was beside her in a chair, along with a lot of her other stuff. It was the only chair at her table so I invited her across to where I was sitting, for a drink.’

‘So she spoke to you first but you hit on her?’

Jordan sighed, heavily. ‘I didn’t hit on her! She’d tried to do me a favour, I thought I’d buy her a drink to say thank you.’

‘I don’t care how long you stand in the box in court or how much you’re exasperated, I don’t want to hear a sigh like that again.’

Fuck you, thought Jordan. Aloud he said, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘You will be, if you get caught out by another lawyer to make you lose your temper and it shows. I warned you already.’

‘I won’t forget again.’

‘I’m not going to let you forget. What happened next with you and Alyce?’

‘We’d talked about books, the first day we began speaking. I knew The Man in the Iron Mask was based on a true story of a prisoner once being imprisoned on one of the islands off Cannes and invited her on a trip the following day, without telling her what it was or where it would be. I rented a catamaran and took her there. We—’

‘Stop!’ demanded the lawyer. ‘Where are we now, first or second day?’

Jordan had to think. ‘Second. We spent all day together.’

‘What about the night?’

‘And the night.’

‘This has got to be exactly how it happened. So tell me – exactly – how it happened. Let’s go back to the first day you began talking.’

There’s nothing much to tell about that first day. After lunch I went into town, had dinner, alone, at the harbour restaurant and then went back to the hotel.’

‘Was she there?’

‘I didn’t see her.’

‘Why didn’t you invite her to dinner with you overlooking the harbour?’

Jordan shrugged ‘I don’t know. I just didn’t.’

‘Did you think something might develop between you?’

‘Not particularly. I was alone, she was alone. Everything was relaxed and easy.’

‘The second day you went on the catamaran trip to the island?’

‘Yes,’ confirmed Jordan.

‘What time?’

‘I don’t …’ stumbled Jordan. ‘In the morning. We had lunch on the boat, after looking at the jail.’

‘How did you manage that?’

‘Manage it?’ questioned Jordan, confused.

‘When did you rent the catamaran?’

‘The first afternoon. After lunch I went into the town, found some yacht charterers and booked the catamaran and had it provisioned for the trip.’

‘So you set up a pretty big expedition?’

‘I chartered a yacht for a one-day cruise. To take Alyce somewhere I thought she’d be interested in seeing.’

‘You went out on the catamaran, you saw the jail where the man in the iron mask was held? Then what?’

‘We swam.’

‘Naked?’ Beckwith asked.

‘In costumes. The catamaran had a crew.’

‘And a cabin?’

‘Of course it had a cabin.’

‘Did you change together?’

‘Separately.’

‘Who changed first?’

Jordan had to think again. ‘I did.’

‘What sort of costume did you wear?’

‘What?’ queried Jordan, not understanding.

‘Trunks? Boxers? What?’

‘Boxer shorts.’

‘What about Alyce?’

‘A bikini.’

‘A brief bikini? Or a two piece?’

‘A brief bikini.’

‘How brief?’

‘Very brief,’ said Jordan, remembering his delay in getting back on to the catamaran.

‘So she was coming on to you?’

‘I guess you could say that.’

‘Harv, we’re not guessing here! We’re trying to keep your ass as far away from the burner as we can. You’re being accused of stealing Al Appleton’s wife literally from under him, causing him physical and mental damage and making his business – and income – suffer from what you did. There have been jury awards well over the $1 million mark on just one such criminal conversation claim and you’re looking at a damned sight more than just one. And the courts – and the judges – have the power to add on punitive damages, too. You understand what I’m telling you? How much it could cost you?’

‘I understand.’ Jordan didn’t welcome being treated like an idiot any more than he liked consistently being called Harv. But it certainly seemed that he needed training. And much more help than he’d imagined up to now.

‘Go on,’ ordered Beckwith.

‘We got back to the harbour around six. I’d taken the hotel car to get there but Alyce said she wanted to walk back: it’s not far. I asked if she wanted dinner but she said she wasn’t hungry after the lunch we’d had on the boat, that she was tired and wanted to go straight to bed.’

Beckwith came forward across his desk. ‘Go to bed around six in the evening?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did you do? Say?’

‘I didn’t finish telling you what she said. She said she wanted to go to bed but not alone.’

Daniel Beckwith began to smile. ‘Tell me the actual words.’

‘“I want to go to bed. But not alone”,’ quoted Jordan. Why, he wondered, was he feeling uncomfortable, embarrassed?

The smile widened. ‘Alyce Appleton spoke to you first, in the hotel lounge? Alyce Appleton wore the very briefest of bikinis, to show you what was on offer? And Alyce Appleton told you that she didn’t want go to bed alone?’

‘It didn’t …’ started Jordan but stopped. Then he said, ‘Yes. That’s how it was.’

‘She chased you,’ insisted Beckwith. ‘You didn’t chase her: seduce her.’

‘We both knew what was happening.’

‘Harv! For fuck’s sake when are you going to start listening to me! What you’ve just told me, was that how it was? How it happened that you came to be in bed with Alyce Appleton?’

‘Yes.’

‘She made it easy for you? Invited you?’

‘If you—’

‘Harv!’ halted the lawyer, warningly.

‘Yes.’

‘We’re getting there, Harv. At the moment you’re not making it easy for either of us but we’re getting there.’

‘I’m not trying to make it difficult, for either of us! Me most of all. I didn’t understand the direction you were coming from.’ Why hadn’t he? Jordan demanded of himself. It surely wasn’t that obscure?

‘Trying to stop you getting skinned alive is the direction I’m coming from, Harv.’

‘Lesley said she thought I might have been set up, by Alyce and her husband together,’ said Jordan. ‘You think I could have been?’ Jordan felt humiliated even by asking the question.

‘It’s a way I might be tempted to go. Depends on the papers when I get to see them. Even as it is, you’ve got the beginnings of a defence if we can get the court to accept what you’re telling me.’

‘It was a holiday affair, for Christ’s sake!’

‘This is a divorce, with more damages accusations than I’ve ever encountered before,’ said Beckwith. ‘Two very different things that so far you haven’t got your head around.’

Jordan was suddenly swept away by a disorienting tiredness, for the briefest of moments his actual awareness ebbing and flowing. ‘Is there any more coffee in that pot?’

‘You OK?’ enquired Beckwith, pouring the dregs.

‘I’m fine,’ exaggerated Jordan. ‘We haven’t talked about the actual hearing. Will the court be closed or open?’

‘Depends upon a request from the plaintiff or defendant. There needs to be an application for a closed court from one or the other.’

‘I’m a defendant, aren’t I? Can’t I make the application?’

‘Primary defendant,’ qualified Beckwith. ‘Which you’re not. And I don’t see it coming from Appleton.’

‘So we’re dependent upon Alyce for the hearing to be private?’

‘If she wants it to be. How serious is your problem with an open court, public hearing?’

‘As serious as it damned well can be! I don’t want to be publicly identified as a wife stealer. Because I’m not.’ The coffee was cold and too bitter and Jordan put it aside.

‘I may get some indication from pre-trial hearings.’

‘What about those pre-trial hearings?’ seized Jordan. ‘Surely we can argue for my dismissal from the proceedings, before it even gets to court?’

‘I’m going to file for dismissal, of course. But I’m not going to hold out hopes that I don’t have.’

‘This is a fucking travesty,’ exploded Jordan, despite all the warnings against losing his temper.

‘Travesty is a word invented for the law,’ said Beckwith. ‘My job is ensuring you’re not a victim of it.’

More my job that yours, thought Jordan.

Jordan was glad when almost at once Beckwith closed the meeting by announcing that the first of the exchanges from the other lawyers had been promised by the middle of the week and suggested a second session on the Thursday. Relieved, too. Jordan didn’t believe he’d handled himself well – maybe not even convincingly – during this first encounter with the American: the remaining, disorientating jet lag might have contributed a little to how ineffectual he considered himself to have been, but he couldn’t find a reason or excuse for the rest. He should, Jordan supposed, be encouraged by Beckwith’s argument that Alyce had been the instigator of the affair, but he wasn’t. He hadn’t had to exaggerate or lie answering the lawyer on how it had begun but there was no way of proving it to be the truth, so it came down to his word against hers. He wished he could remember what Alyce had said lying naked on the hotel bed in St Tropez. And that the questions crowding in upon him at this moment had come to mind when he’d been with Beckwith instead of now, when it was too late.

Finally, objectively, Jordan confronted a hovering feeling he could identify. He hadn’t regained control of or over his life today and he was scared. Shit-scared.

Eleven

The lawyer skimmed the photographs across the desk and said, ‘Here’s the guy who hates your guts and wants all your money.’

If Appleton ever found out what more was going to happen to him – which he never would – he was going to hate his guts a whole lot more, thought Jordan, picking up the prints. Alfred Jerome Appleton was a fleshy, heavy-featured, prominent-nosed man who combed his receding hair straight back, giving himself a high forehead, just above the left temple of which was a deep red strawberry mark. They were portraits but showed enough of the man’s shoulders to indicate a build to match his features. Jordan was sure, even before meeting him in the flesh, that Appleton would tower over him, although only ever physically.

‘And here’s his reason,’ said Beckwith, following with the photographs of Alyce. They reminded Jordan of the sort of pictures police released of someone after they had been arrested, charged with a crime and pictured for a criminal record file. Alyce was staring expressionlessly at the camera, her hair brushed – although not very well – straight down. Jordan didn’t think she’d bothered with any make-up, either, apart maybe for a lip liner, and she had worn her dark-rimmed spectacles, which she hadn’t when they had been together except when she’d needed to read. Her eyes were partially closed behind them. She was wearing black – Jordan couldn’t decide whether it was a dress or a sweater – without any visible jewellery. He was caught by the impression that, while not as determinedly as he’d tried, Alyce had posed to make herself as different as possible from how she normally looked.

‘That is Alyce, right?’ asked Beckwith, formally.

‘Doing her bag lady act on a bad day,’ confirmed Jordan. ‘Appleton looks years older.’

The lawyer went to the papers before him. ‘Eleven years older, to be precise. Appleton’s forty-one to Alyce’s thirty-one: there’s a couple of months between the birthdays that makes it eleven months at the moment.’

‘You got all the papers now?’ demanded Jordan.

‘The first of the formal exchanges, yes.’ It was a tossed aside blazer in a heap today, the shirt less strident than before, although the bison belt was the same. ‘Alyce’s lawyer is a guy named Bob Reid: don’t remember him from when I practised down there.’

‘How’s it look, as far as I am concerned?’

‘On first reading I think there’s enough for me to apply for a pre-hearing dismissal of some if not all of the damages claims,’ said Beckwith. ‘The dates are in your favour. Alyce is citing two gals by name – a Sharon Borowski and a Leanne Jefferies – and others unnamed, all the adultery before you and Alyce met in France. And she’s claiming the same sort of criminal conversation damages against one of them, Leanne Jefferies.’

‘Why not Sharon Borowski?’ broke in Jordan.

I don’t know at this stage.’

‘Tit for tat,’ declared Jordan, suddenly. ‘I’ve been trying to remember something Alyce said, when we were together. I asked outright about her marriage, used a silly expression like “what’s the status of your marriage?”. She said there wasn’t one, that it was over. I suggested she was playing tit for tat, she said “something like that” and asked if I was offended, at being used by her. I told her I wasn’t.’

Beckwith concentrated on one of the document bundles on his desk, before leaning eagerly forward over it as he had at their first meeting. ‘Her exchange doesn’t say anything like that! But then I wouldn’t expect it to. It’s certainly something I can put to her if we ever get into a full divorce court hearing.’

‘Would it help?’

‘Like hell it would help,’ insisted Beckwith. ‘It fits with what you already told me of her coming on to you … the woman scorned syndrome.’

‘What does she say, about her and me? About what happened in France?’

‘She doesn’t contradict your account at all, that it was a holiday thing with some revenge on her part. That her marriage was over and that what happened between you was a no-strings situation, certainly – most importantly – that nothing was prearranged. The covering letter from her attorney wants a meeting, ASAP.’

‘What for?’

‘Undefined,’ said Beckwith with a shrug. ‘I’m guessing a co-operating defence.’

‘I’d like to think that, too,’ said Jordan, meaning it. ‘My more immediate thought, though, is that it doesn’t look as if this is a conspiracy between her and her husband.’

‘Mine too,’ agreed Beckwith. ‘But let’s not get to feel too comfortable too soon.’

I also don’t think Appleton’s case makes sense. If there’s chapter and verse in Alyce’s divorce application, with proof of Appleton screwing two named women as well as various others before Alyce and I even met, where the hell’s his case against me? It’s ridiculous.’

I told you already that I know David Bartle and his firm, by reputation. And that they play hardball. At the moment I don’t think it makes any more sense than you. But Bartle wouldn’t be going this route if the judge might repeat your word – ridiculous – when he comes to make his judgement on the claims.’

‘Lesley told me in London the point of exchanging intended evidence is to prevent surprises in court?’ questioned Jordan.

‘It is,’ agreed Beckwith. ‘They’re making me work from the first gun.’

‘So you think they might be holding something back?’

‘They’ll be doing so at their peril. Dramatic, last presentation of evidence is OK for movie or television. You try it in reality and you’re likely to get it struck from the record. Which loses – defeats, in fact – the whole nonsense of trying it in the first place.’

‘You going to meet Alyce’s lawyer …?’ He stopped, not able to remember the name.

‘Reid, Bob Reid,’ supplied the other lawyer. ‘Talk, certainly. Hear what he wants to discuss. That’s where the indication might come from, of Appleton’s game.’

‘I want to know everything there is to know about Alfred Appleton himself,’ announced Jordan.

Beckwith shuffled through his papers. ‘Got the profile here,’ he said, not looking up. ‘We’ll flesh it out further through our own people, of course: try to find the things he doesn’t want us to know. Here’s what there is so far. He’s a graduate from the Harvard Business School, actually born in Boston. Old family, old money. Father was a banker. Set up his own commodity business shortly after his marriage to Alyce when they settled in Manhattan, according to what his side have supplied. Predominantly trades in metals although there’s a spread – cereals, pork belly on the Chicago market, some currency – through others in the firm. Company turnover of $75,000,000 in the last pre-tax year …’ The lawyer looked up at the same time as making a note to himself on a yellow legal pad. ‘I’ll need to get in much more detail Appleton’s personal trading history in view of the itemised claims he’s filed.’ Beckwith made another note. ‘Full medical history, as well, for the mental and physical suffering he’s alleging you caused.’ Beckwith returned to the file supplied by Appleton’s lawyer. ‘Married Alyce Bellamy – that’s another old family, old money North Carolina name – ten years ago. No children. A yachtsman, sails out of East Hampton. Manhattan address on West 94th.’ He smiled and looked back up. ‘That’s about it.’

That didn’t amount to even half of it, judged Jordan. But Beckwith had been encapsulating. ‘You think I could have my own copy of Appleton’s personal details? Alyce’s too?’

Beckwith frowned, although lightly. ‘You going to do the research or am I?’

‘I want to know everything – and more – about a man you say hates my guts. And who you describe as the reason for that hatred. I read it all, I might come up with something else, something that fits, like I did today remembering her tit for tat response.’

‘I was trying to lighten things up a tad,’ said Beckwith. ‘Of course you get your own copies. I want you to have your own copies. There are reasons.’

Now it was Jordan who frowned, not understanding. ‘What reasons?’

‘Read everything for yourself first. Take your time.’

‘What about my being there at the meeting with Alyce’s lawyer?’

Beckwith shook his head, his uncertainty genuine now. ‘I’m not sure about that: if I want it or if Bob Reid would want it. Let me speak to him first, see what he’s got in mind. Might be something I hadn’t thought of.’

‘I hope not!’ said Jordan, too quickly, although at the same time admiring the unexpected humility.

‘So do I,’ replied the lawyer with a grin, ‘but you’re still doing it, speaking before you properly think.’

Jordan ignored the rebuke. Instead, mocking, he said, ‘I also think – after full and proper consideration – I should stay on until you see Alyce’s guy, don’t you?’

‘A day or two maybe,’ allowed Beckwith.

‘Can I have my copies: something to read through while I’m waiting? And the advance I asked for?’

Suzie’s outfit today was an aquamarine tube dress with the same effect as the previous tight sweater and skirt. She said, ‘Hi!’ as before, after collecting what needed to be duplicated, but this time there wasn’t any flirtatious repartee.

Beckwith said, ‘You got over the flight now?’

‘Totally,’ assured Jordan. ‘Spent the last couple of days in Atlantic City.’ He had considered Las Vegas, which he knew well, against Atlantic City, which he didn’t, but decided upon somewhere to which he could conveniently commute from Manhattan.

‘How’d you make out?’

‘Dropped a little. Nothing disastrous but it’s why I’d like a cash infusion. Need to get the feel of the place.’ Jordan preferred European to American casinos, believing that the electronic surveillance of the individual tables in the American ones – in addition to the alertness of the croupier, dealer and pit boss – was far more likely to catch his minimal stake technique. His two long nights on the Atlantic coast had cost him close to $2,000, which he philosophically accepted was about right for the all important pieces of paper.

‘Losing’s an occupational hazard, I guess?’ suggested the lawyer.

‘It happens,’ agreed Jordan, reluctantly. But was soon to stop, he thought, as Suzie re-entered the room.

Jordan objectively acknowledged that there’d already been false starts and dents to his confidence, but for the first time he decided that with the statements of Alfred and Alyce Appleton tightly in his possession this really was the beginning of him regaining his lost control; of actually setting his own agenda, not conforming to that of others. Just as objectively he recognized that he would have to be more careful than he’d ever been in, or with, anything he’d ever tried to plan before.

If Alfred Appleton’s lawyers got the faintest hint of what he had in mind – Reid or Beckwith as well, Jordan supposed – the sky would come crashing down upon him. But he’d lived as an identity thief without once being caught out for the last fifteen years by his own hidden and extremely profitable agendas. And could – most definitely would – do it again now, just as successfully undetected as he’d always been. Being ensnared as he had in France didn’t come into any equation or conflict: everything about France was totally different. Just as this new agenda would be completely different.

Jordan accepted that he had far more to do – and very differently – than was usual in one of his identity frauds. But then he was starting with a lot more, he consoled himself, gazing down at the copied divorce application statements of Alfred and Alyce Appleton set out on the bureau of his locked Carlyle suite, the Do Not Disturb sign displayed on the outside of his door, the hotel telephone exchange under orders not to put through any calls, no matter how persistent or convincingly argumentative the caller.

Opening the thicker of the two files before him Jordan decided that Daniel Beckwith had most definitely encapsulated the information, although not in any obstructive way; the personal material in the Alfred Jerome Appleton dossier would not have appeared relevant to the lawyer. To Jordan it was an Aladdin’s cave of treasure that would normally have taken him weeks to compile. And still would not have been as comprehensive. There was Alfred Jerome Appleton’s copied birth certificate from which Jordan learned that the maiden name of the man’s mother had been Channing. There were the reproduced, personally identifying pages from the man’s passport, still with three years to go before renewal. The actual apartment number – 593 – at West 94th Street was accompanied by the unlisted, personal telephone number. The East Hampton address was on Atlantic Avenue. The man’s Internet address was also given. The most unexpected bonus of all was the man’s New York commodities trading licence. Appleton’s private bank details not only provided the account number but also the man’s Social Security and private health care insurance numbers. Also listed were the clubs and organizations to which Appleton belonged, the most predictable of which was the Commodity Floor Brokers and Traders’ Association. He belonged, predictable again, to two Long Island yacht clubs. And there were photographs, not the posed formal ones that Beckwith had produced in his office, but a selection of amateur pictures: several of Appleton at the helm of a spinaker-bloomed twelve-metre racing yacht, its name obscured; and others of the man receiving awards, twice in sailing clothes at open-air ceremonies, yachts in the background, three at dinner-jacketed banquets. Alyce, smiling in admiration, was close at hand in three of them. In each the bull-shouldered, thick-bodied man dwarfed her, as Jordan had already decided Appleton would physically dominate him.

Jordan eased back in his chair for what was to become the first of several reflections, intentionally allowing the pages – and his initial savouring of them – to mist before his eyes. So much detail, he mused. With more to follow, once he read on, because there would doubtless be spelled out, perhaps literally, the allegedly damaged marriage, social, health and financial loss to support the individual claims. All to establish the severity of each and every loss. He wasn’t scared, Jordan recognized, pleased with the awareness. Apprehensive perhaps, because there was still so much more that he had to learn and there was still the hovering risk of public exposure which had to be prevented. But not as scared as he had been, those few short days ago. Nor when he realized he had been robbed of everything. Now he was thinking for himself, letting the ideas germinate in his mind, sufficiently independent of others, necessary though legal representation was.

Appleton’s personal statement was preceded by a legally phrased caveat that it was preliminary and therefore subject to revision or amendment. There was an immediate reference annotation to the formal beginning, which recorded the marriage having taken place on April 12th, 1996, at the Sacred Heart cathedral at Raleigh, North Carolina. Jordan at once turned to it, to find a copy of a full, two-page cutting from the Raleigh News and Observer describing the marriage as the bringing together of two historically established families: there was a Jeremiah Bellamy among the early settlers colonizing the east coast and a Jeremiah Appleton was one of the Boston rebels against the taxation demands of Georgian England. The wedding photographs showed a little changed Alyce but a much slimmer Appleton.

Appleton’s statement recorded their setting up home on West 94th Street after a honeymoon in Hawaii. He described his marriage to Alyce as happy for the first four years, with both he and Alyce dismayed by a series of miscarriages. That dismay increased with Alyce’s failure to become pregnant despite a year’s IVF treatment. Neither considered adoption an acceptable alternative option. The marriage came under increasing strain because of the amount of time and commitment Appleton had to devote to his business in the early years of its establishment. There were frequent, sometimes violent disagreements between them. Appleton did not consider Alyce sufficiently supportive. She preferred East Hampton, where there was an inherited Appleton family house, and a pattern developed for Alyce to spend the majority of her time there, with his living most of the week alone in Manhattan, returning to Long Island at weekends.

In 1999, for the first time, they discussed divorce, which he neither wanted nor sought. In an effort to avoid it, Appleton, for varying periods of time, commuted daily by seaplane service from Sag Harbour to the 23rd St facility on Manhattan’s East river, despite the strain involved – he was a nervous, reluctant flyer – and it meant his not being able to devote as much time as he considered necessary to his business. Here there was another indexed reference, in which, when he turned to it, Jordan found a selection of financial statements starred to illustrate trading losses. Jordan made a quick mental calculation and estimated the across-the-board deficit from the submitted statements totalled close to two million. Appleton claimed that to stem those losses and get his personal trading back to the profit level he’d achieved when he worked the necessary weekly hours in Manhattan, he would have to reduce his Long Island commuting to three days a week.

In January, 2005, Appleton claimed Appleton and Drake had suffered its largest three-monthly trading loss of $950,000. He and Alyce mutually agreed in that month to a trial separation, Appleton living in the Manhattan apartment, Alyce remaining in East Hampton. During that period of separation he became involved in two brief affairs, one of three weeks with Sharon Borowski and one of a month with Leanne Jefferies. He terminated both and sought a reconciliation with Alyce, to which she agreed. There was a short conjugal reunion of less than two months, Appleton once again commuting by seaplane. In September Alyce insisted on their sleeping separately and he began to suspect she was having an affair. She denied it when he confronted her. She initiated divorce proceedings, citing the two women with whom he insisted he had ceased any contact with before returning to live as much as possible in East Hampton. It was during that reunion that he’d admitted the affairs to her “to wipe the slate clean”. He asked her to consult a marriage guidance counsellor with him, to which she agreed but refused to continue after three joint sessions. When she announced her intention of spending the summer in Europe, he became even more convinced that Alyce was involved with another man and engaged the private detective agency that discovered her relationship with Harvey William Jordan. The index reference here contained what was described as sample proof of a premeditated liaison, further evidence of which would be produced at the divorce hearing. From the samples Jordan recognized three photographs, one of them aboard the catamaran, the second of their lunching together on the sea-fronting terrace at the Residence de la Pinade and the third at the Cagnes hotel. There were copies of Mr and Mrs Jordan’s room registrations from the St Tropez and Cagnes hotels.

Appleton claimed to have become depressed from the moment of Alyce’s refusal to share the same bedroom. The combination of psychiatric consultations, loss of confidence, mental distraction, prescribed tranquillisers and medication to treat the mental and physical effects of his wife’s behaviour had made it virtually impossible for him to run or control his business for the past several months: there had been long periods when he had been unable to work at all. He was still undergoing psychiatric and medical treatment. There was no prognosis to indicate how long it would be necessary for him to continue either. Because the costs were therefore ongoing, invoices up to the date of the hearing would be presented at the time of that hearing, together with an estimate of likely expenditure in the future.

While openly admitting his now deeply regretted adultery, Appleton insisted he had done everything in his power to sustain and preserve his marriage to Alyce. His wife had never been subjected to physical violence. She had enjoyed a personal allowance of $10,000 a month – unaffected by the financial upheavals of his business, for which he considered her a contributory cause – with Appleton paying all the household bills and expenditures. He provided Alyce with a new, personal Mercedes every two years. He also contributed towards the upkeep and staff costs of the Bellamy family mansion at Raleigh, North Carolina, in which Alyce’s widowed mother still lived.

Appleton further insisted he was devastated by the collapse of his marriage and even as late as her return from France had been prepared to re-engage in a marriage guidance programme and attempt a further reconciliation. Alyce had refused to discuss either with him, having formally instigated the proceedings from France, where she had been adulterously involved with Harvey Jordan. From whom, the statement concluded, Appleton sought exemplary and punitive recompense for each and every claimed damage.

Jordan stretched back from the bureau for the second time, surprised that it had grown dark outside without his noticing, trying as objectively as possible to decide where he fitted into the mosaic. And very quickly concluding that he wasn’t part of it at all. He wasn’t denying the adultery in France but there was no proof or evidence – because none existed – of there having been a premeditated assignation. Which made it impossible for him to be held responsible in any way whatsoever for the collapse of an already collapsed marriage. And if that accusation didn’t stand – which it couldn’t – he was sure he was not responsible for any damage, commercial, mental or physical, for which Appleton was demanding financial compensation.

He still had Alyce’s initial submission to read, Jordan remembered.

Her personal documentation matched that of Appleton and included two addresses, the North Carolina colonial mansion on Raleigh’s King George Street and a Manhattan apartment at 341 West 84th Street. Jordan’s immediate impression was that Alyce’s account of her marriage was going to be remarkably similar to that of her husband, until he reached the second page of her statement. In it were named a long list of trusts and charitable organizations – and a hospital and clinic in Raleigh – all financed and run by a Bellamy Foundation, of which, until a year after her marriage, Alyce had been executive director. Alyce’s marriage activated a two-million-dollar family trust in her favour. When Appleton announced his intention of setting up his own commodity trading business she loaned him $500,000 on the clear understanding that it was a loan, although no formal papers were legally drawn up or sworn. Over the following five years she loaned the company a further $500,000, again with no formal papers being signed to establish it as such or of her being named as a director. She received no repayments or dividends reflecting the total loan of one million dollars, but upon Appleton’s insistence that it minimized any tax liability she accepted Mercedes cars in lieu. Under this word-of-mouth arrangement she was given a total of four cars during the period of their marriage.

Alyce used the same word as Appleton – dismay – to describe her failure to become pregnant but attested that before entering the year long IVF treatment she underwent gynaecological examination to establish if she were capable of becoming pregnant and bearing a child. The results were positive; there were no problems. Appleton refused similar medical examination, which caused arguments between them. After the unsuccessful IVF treatment Alyce suggested adoption but Appleton was adamantly opposed, which resulted in further arguments.

Almost from the establishment of his commodity trading business Appleton insisted it was necessary for him to work late into the evening; frequently – as often as twice a week -she would be in bed before he returned. Despite the apparent dedication to work and some indications of success – there was an indexed reproduction from the Wall Street Journal describing Appleton and Drake as emerging stars in metal market dealings – Appleton repeatedly told her he was personally suffering substantial losses in his own tradings, although he never showed her books or financial statements. Because of the amount of time she remained alone in the Manhattan apartment Alyce developed a preference for East Hampton. There she worked actively for local cystic fibrosis and breast cancer charities – having by then resigned her position on the Bellamy Foundation – and enjoyed sailing, a mutual interest through which she and Appleton met.

Alyce asserted that it was she who suggested they divorce, so little time did they spend together. During that discussion she made it clear she wanted the return of her one million dollars. Appleton argued against divorce but suggested a trial separation of six months, to which she agreed. Towards the end of that six months Appleton further suggested that he return to live in East Hampton and commute during the week. She agreed but regarded it as a continuation of a trial, particularly after his confession of affairs with Sharon Borowski and Leanne Jefferies. Appleton was adamant that both had been totally unimportant and that he was making the confession to restore their marriage. His confession supported her belief that there had been many other sexual liaisons. There was renewed discussion about their having children and they resumed conjugal relations. He once more refused any fertility tests but Alyce decided to undergo a second series of fertility examinations, prior to taking gynaecological advice about further IVF.

The bombshell came when Jordan turned to page five of Alyce’s account. On the second of her resumed examinations Alyce received the results of tests taken at the first. There was incontestable evidence that she was suffering from chlamydia, a venereal infection that can render a woman sufferer infertile or result in severe eye conditions in any child she bears. Alyce declared that she had been a virgin at the time of her marriage to Alfred Appleton and had been involved with no other sexual partner during her marriage, not even during their period of separation. It was the discovery of her venereal infection that brought about her refusal to sleep with Appleton and the reason for her beginning the divorce proceedings which she finally instituted on her vacation in France, which she described as ‘getting away from the awfulness of the deceit with which I have lived for so long’.

During that vacation she had an affair with an Englishman, Harvey Jordan. It was a casual, entirely consensual relationship that was not premeditated and ended upon her return to the United States with neither of them intending any future contact or association. She deeply regretted the affair, to which she had succumbed from loneliness and self-satisfying spite at the total betrayal of which she believed herself the victim.

Jordan’s sank back into his seat as the fury churned through him, his mind dominated by only one question. How good a venerealogist was the money-grabbing Dr James Preston?

Twelve

‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me yesterday about Alyce’s infection?’ demanded Jordan, still as angry as he had been when he’d finished reading her statement the previous night. He’d been on the phone as nine o’clock struck, insisting upon an immediate meeting, but had to wait until noon.

‘Because I wanted you to read everything through for yourself,’ responded Beckwith, calmly. ‘This way we can take it forward, not spend hours talking back and forth because you didn’t have everything in context.’

‘What context! She’s got a venereal disease and I slept with her!’

‘Your choice not to ask. Her choice not to tell you,’ reminded the lawyer, still calm. ‘And you’ve got a medical report that says you haven’t got an infection.’

‘Is that why you had me undergo that examination in England: that you already knew she had it?’

‘No,’ denied Beckwith. ‘It’s regular practice with such damages claims in North Carolina. I didn’t know about Alyce until I got her exchange yesterday. It surprised me as much as I guess it surprised you.’

‘Surprise doesn’t cover it! And I don’t think you can feel the same way about it as I do,’ refused Jordan. ‘What about her medical report?’

‘Not part of the first exchange. And if it helps I understand chlamydia responds to antibiotics. The effect is worse in woman and their babies than it is in a man.’

‘That assurance doesn’t help a damn, either,’ refused Jordan, again. ‘She says she didn’t have any other sexual partner except Appleton, before me.’

‘I’ve read what she says.’

‘And she knew she had it before we slept together?’

‘Yes?’

‘So if he gave it to her and she knowingly passed it on to me I’ve got a claim against both of them, haven’t I?’

‘Your report says you’re clear.’

‘I think the doctor who examined me was a robbing asshole. Maybe incompetent, too. I want another test … a second opinion.’

‘I do, too,’ said the man, offering a paper across the desk just as Lesley Corbin had done in England. ‘Dr Abrahams is the venerealogist we use regularly. Suzie’s got you an appointment for this afternoon – I guessed you’d want it as soon as possible. We’ve copied the English medical report. Abrahams wants to see it.’

People making decisions for him again, thought Jordan. ‘What about me counterclaiming?’

‘Sure, if you are infected. You slept with anyone else since Alyce?’

‘No,’ denied Jordan. ‘What about what Alyce says, that Appleton slept around – admits himself to have done so with two different women – but refused to have any examinations? Could a court order him to have one?’

Beckwith pursed his lips, making an uncertain expression. ‘There could be a technical argument against it, claiming assault.’

‘That’s what Lesley told me you wanted my medical examination for: that if a sexual infection is knowingly transmitted there’s a criminal case to be made. It’s been established in law with AIDS, hasn’t it?’

‘We’re sure as hell getting an interesting case here.’

With more and more potential for publicity, thought Jordan, worriedly. ‘You had any contact yet with Alyce’s lawyer?’

‘Speaking with him later today.’

‘I want to be at any meeting,’ insisted Jordan.

‘I hadn’t forgotten.’

‘I think I’ve got more right now than before.’

‘Not if you’re going to issue suit against her, you haven’t! We sue her you don’t get within a million miles of her lawyer until we go into court.’

Jordan was getting that straitjacketed feeling again. ‘How long’ll it take Abrahams to make his reports?’

Beckwith shrugged, not knowing. ‘Tell him you’re in a hurry.’

‘Which I am.’

‘Why don’t I talk things through generally with Bob, down there in Raleigh?’ suggested Beckwith. ‘Get a feel of where he’s coming from; he’s seeking a meeting with us, after all. We’re in the driving seat.’

‘Do whatever you’ve got to do to push things along: to get me off this fucking great hook from which I don’t believe I should be hanging in the first place,’ said Jordan, impatiently.

‘You’re losing your temper,’ accused Beckwith.

‘You’re damned right I’m losing my fucking temper! And we’re in Lexington Avenue, Manhattan, not in some half-assed court in Raleigh, North Carolina.’

‘That half-assed court in Raleigh, North Carolina, has the legal power, upon each and every one of Appleton’s claims, to award against you a maximum of fifteen million dollars.’

‘You didn’t tell me that, either!’ accused Jordan.

‘It didn’t arise in the conversation until now. And now it has.’

‘I couldn’t come anywhere near a figure like that!’ protested Jordan.

‘I’d increase my fees if I thought you could,’ said Beckwith. ‘For the moment you’ve got to remember the difference between where you are, when you have to.’

‘I will.’ This was a juvenile, who-punches-whom first argument, Jordan acknowledged. ‘Let’s stop this shit, shall we?’

‘Probably a good idea,’ said the already smiling Beckwith. ‘If I were you, I’d be pissed, too.’

‘Is this the way these things go? Upon so little?’

‘This case is getting features all of its own,’ admitted the lawyer.

‘Can I call you again, after you’ve talked to Alyce’s lawyer? And I’ve seen the venerealogist?’

‘I think you should. Some things might be clearer then.’

‘I hope so,’ said Jordan, meaning it.

The difference was dramatic, in each and every way. George Abrahams’ surgery on West 58th street was a space-age comparison of chrome-gleaming, germ-forbidden sterility against the sagged-cushioned, frayed-carpeted Harley Street townhouse conversion of James Preston. George Abrahams was a close-cropped, rarely smiling man in a white jacket-and-trouser clinical uniform so starched that Jordan expected it audibly to crack when the man moved. Abrahams looked too young to have gained all the qualifications, the framed testimonials, which lined the walls, and Jordan was confident even before the man looked up from the English venerealogist’s report that if he’d contracted something from a three-thousand-year-old Egyptian burial pyramid, Abrahams could have diagnosed and cured it.

‘Why do you want these findings confirmed?’ asked the American, when he did finally look up. Abrahams’ tone was as sterile as his surroundings.

‘We didn’t know when that examination was carried out that the woman in whose divorce I am being cited had a sexual infection.’

Abrahams went back to the first report. ‘Which sexual infection, precisely? The report here refers to HIV.’

‘Chlamydia.’

Abrahams said, ‘That’s not signed off.’

‘Which is why I am here.’

‘How long was your relationship with her?’

Jordan sighed, without intending to, at the familiarity of the questioning. ‘Just short of a month. We met on holiday, in France.’

‘She tell you she had an infection?’

‘Of course not! I wouldn’t have slept with her if she had, would I?’

‘Probably not,’ agreed the other man, as flat-voiced as Beckwith had been earlier. ‘What symptoms have you got?’

Jordan felt hot with a mixture of embarrassment and frustration at the conversation: it was as if his penis was under permanent microscopic examination. ‘I don’t have any symptoms! The examination I had in London was because my lawyer asked for it; apparently it’s a recognized need in the sort of case in which I am involved. Since I had the examination we’ve learned what she was suffering from.’

Now it was the American who sighed. ‘This doctor in London? When you talked did he say he was examining you for non-specific urethritis, caused by something other than gonorrhoea?’

‘No. He did not mention that.’

‘Have you had any penile discharge?’

‘He asked me that.’

‘Now I’m carrying out the examination,’ reminded the specialist, the irritation sounding in his voice. ‘What’s the answer?’

‘No.’

‘Lower abdominal pain or discomfort?’

‘No.’

‘Irritation?’

‘No.’

‘Genital inflammation? Rash?’

‘No.’

Abrahams smiled up from the notes he was making. ‘So far, so good. Now I want blood, urine and sperm samples.’

‘Sperm?’ queried Jordan.

‘Try to remember when we were kids and we all did it, like a lot still do. I’ve got photographs and movies if it will help.’

It took Jordan almost an hour to fulfil every test, after Abrahams’ physical pubic examination; at one stage Jordan even considered Abrahams’ pornographic offer. Back in the venerealogist’s office Jordan said, ‘I’d like the results as soon as possible, sent direct to my lawyer.’

‘That’s what they will be, returned as soon as possible.’

‘No,’ said Jordan. I really mean like tomorrow, whatever it costs. Couriered direct from wherever they’re being analysed. Can you arrange that?’

‘Chlamydia is not a difficult disease to treat and cure. There’s no cause to panic.’

The exasperated burn came again. Jordan said, ‘Tomorrow, OK? Whatever it costs.’

‘Tomorrow,’ agreed the doctor. ‘If you’re positive we’ll arrange more appointments, get it cleared up. If you do need treatment you’ll either have to use a condom or abstain during any treatment.’

‘At this precise moment I feel like staying celibate for the rest of my life!’ said Jordan.

‘Friday,’ Beckwith told Jordan, on the telephone.

‘What’s he want to talk about?’

‘A combined strategy, as I thought. We didn’t go into detail on the phone.’

‘Did you talk to him about my being with you?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘You know why not. We don’t know yet whether we’re going to sue Alyce. If we do then Friday’s meeting between Bob and me will obviously be cancelled.’

‘Abrahams has promised to have his results by tomorrow. They’re going to be couriered direct to you.’

‘What did Abrahams say?’

‘That if I’ve contracted anything he’ll treat it. That chlamydia responds well to treatment. Did you talk to Reid about it?’

‘I told you we didn’t go into the details of anything on the telephone. He did say Alyce is sorry you’ve got dragged into this.’

‘Not as sorry as I am!’

‘If Abrahams keeps his promised schedule, we’ll know by tomorrow if we are going to sue her,’ Beckwith pointed out.

‘I’ve already worked that out. If the results are OK I could come down to Raleigh with you.’

‘We’ll see.’

‘What’s to see? If I’m with you we can decide on the spot whether it’s going to be a joint strategy or not. Get things moving.’

‘Harv! Let’s see what tomorrow’s report says. We’re not in a race here.’

‘I am! I’m in a hurry – in a race – to get this whole bloody nonsense over and done with. And if you can’t help me I’ll find someone who can!’ As well as being in a hurry to start the retribution I intend, Jordan thought. There wasn’t any time limit on his returning to England. The only essential consideration was continuing the rental of Hans Crescent and there was still weeks to go before he needed to do that.

‘I’ll call you the moment I hear from Abrahams,’ promised the lawyer. Stiffly he added, ‘You get any thoughts about changing your legal representation in the meantime, I’ll do all I can to find you the best lawyer with North Carolina Bar exam qualifications to take your case over. It’ll probably mean your going down to Raleigh for consultation, of course.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ said Jordan, refusing to be bullied.

Frustration remained Jordan’s most persistent feeling. That and having his penis and his bodily fluids so persistently and literally under a microscope, like a rare specimen of humanity displayed on a slab. Should he call Beckwith’s bluff and change lawyers? He was strongly tempted; after the first few minutes from putting down the telephone on the lawyer he’d reached out to call Beckwith back to tell him he did want to change. He had literally held back, his hand hovering over the receiver, fighting the anger which he now realized, belatedly and with a fresh blip of frustration, was what Beckwith was constantly urging him to do. He really didn’t want to change. Despite Beckwith’s Wild West affectation – strangely incongruous for a man born and raised on the eastern seaboard state – and the irritating Christian name abbreviation, Jordan liked the man. And believed he was a good lawyer, despite there being no criteria upon which to judge. He had to be, surely, swimming among the legal sharks of Manhattan in preference to the calmer waters of North Carolina? He’d let it go this time, Jordan decided, and at once contradicted himself. He’d let it ride, see how things developed. If he were subsequently dissatisfied, Beckwith’s offer to withdraw remained on the table between them.

Jordan’s telephone rang just before ten the following morning. Beckwith said, ‘You haven’t got a problem. There’s not a trace of any venereal infection. And I’ve spoken to Bob. He’s happy for you to come along. Suzie’s already bought the tickets.’

The furnished service apartment Jordan had isolated on West 72nd on his second day in Manhattan was still available and by just after 1 p.m. Jordan had secured a three-month lease in the name of Alfred Jerome Appleton with a full cash deposit covering both rental and charges. He also paid cash for a telephone connection, with an unlisted number. He gave the name and address of the First National Bank on Wall Street for a reference. He was at that bank, the first of those he had chosen, an hour later. He opened the account in Appleton’s name with an initial cash deposit of $3,500 and Appleton’s genuine Social Security number so conveniently available from the exchanged court documents. The bank official made a particular note that Jordan would predominantly use electronic banking, although he did need bank, credit card and chequebook facilities and gave Appleton’s mother’s maiden name for the security reference. Jordan authorized all charges to be directly debited from his account and warned the man to expect a realtor’s bank reference request for West 72nd Street. The bank official hoped they’d have a mutually satisfacatory relationship and Jordan said he was sure they would.